


Lineage

by Windian



Category: Tales of Berseria
Genre: Backstory for the exorcist sibs, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 08:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10486569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: The illegitimate daughter of Lord Dragonia, you’re an embarrassing speck that couldn’t quite be swept under the carpet. Eyes sweep past you without seeing. But not with Oscar. Sometimes, don’t even have to speak the words for your brother to hear them.





	

You kneel under the base of the old oak tree in the garden, apron smudged with soil and salt. Another visit ending in tears. Your cousins had torn the lace shawl from your head, trampled it underfoot, the sting of pins torn from hair like the housekeeper’s comb, pulled without kindness. Much too good for a maid, they’d said.

Another evening breaking bread at the servants table, where the servants give Lord Dragonia’s daughter a wide berth. Not a commoner, nor a noble: she sat somewhere hopelessly in-between, alone. 

“Sister, here you are.”

You hastily wipe the tears from your eyes. Despite everything, you still have your pride. “Oscar? What are you doing out here?” you ask him.

“Looking for you.” In his hand, dripping with pond water and green with algae is the ruins of your shawl. “This is yours, isn’t it? I found it in the pond.”

You clam up. You still have your pride, you tell yourself, trying hard to make yourself believe it.

“It was Lydia and Lara again, wasn’t it?” His mouth twists into an angry line. “I’ll have words with them. They can’t be allowed to treat you like this.”

“Don’t,” you say. “It won’t help.”

“Then I’ll speak to mother–”

“ _Don’t_ ,” you say again, firmer. As he turns to leave to find the Lady, your hand catches around his wrist. _Just, stay._

For everyone else in the manor, you’re a speck that couldn’t quite be swept under the carpet. But with Oscar, you sometimes don’t even have to speak the words for your brother to hear them.

He drops down, crossing his knees just like when was a little boy, fumbles with something in his pocket. “I found something in a draw,” he tells you.

You lift your eyebrows. “In a draw?”

He produces a jewellery box from his pocket. With a click, reveals two earrings like slivers of water in aquamarine blue. Two perfect tear-drops.

“They made me think of you. It’s your colour, right? Here.”

It’s not until Oscar puts them into your hands that you understand his intent. Heat rises to your face until it feels like your cheeks are on fire.

“Oscar… why are you giving these to me?”

Oscar looks blankly and sweetly at you, the innocent boy that he is. “Well, they ruined your shawl, so…”

The fire rises higher, and it’s hard to get out the words: “Oscar, you realise these are heirlooms, don’t you? You… you’re supposed to give them to your fiancé.”

Oscar colours, too, at this revelation. “Oh. I um, didn’t.”

You snap the box closed, and attempt to give it back. But his hands close around yours, and around the jewellery box in your grasp.

“I still want you to keep them,” he says, quietly.

You lower your head. Tears sting in your eyes.

The shawl floating in the pond. Your father’s eyes, passing over without seeing.

It’s too much.

“They’re… not meant for me. Some beautiful noblewoman somewhere is supposed to wear them. Someone who’ll make you happy.”

“You already do,” says Oscar. His hands tighten around yours.

The second son, destined to be pledged into the Abbey's service, eyes had looked past him, too. On warm summer days when you were children, he'd escape his studies and the confines of the manor and together you'd make down to the lakeside. You sometimes wonder if Oscar remembers. How on those carefree summer afternoons, hunting bugs and splashing in the water, he had pledged to marry you. How, playing in the rushes by the lake, he’d wound a ring out of willow and slipped it onto your finger and sealed it with a kiss.

You can still taste it on your lips: that fumbling innocent kiss tasting of sun-dappled days playing by the shore-side.

That pledge will never be fulfilled. Yet as Oscar helps you put on the earrings, you can’t help but think he remembers it, too. Tongue poked out in quaint concentration, his touch his nothing short of tender. He’s so close his breath catches against your neck, sends shivery tingles up across your scalp.

For a moment, you wish he’d kiss you again.

Then he sits back, looking utterly pleased by his work. “There. Beautiful, just like I thought.”

You sit a little straighter. You push your shoulders back. Even if everyone else looks past you, he sees you.  You don’t need a title, or even good blood. 

Just him.


End file.
